- 3 hours ago
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00Kusutniak Park, outside the Serbian capital, Belgrade.
00:10In May 1914, a Bosnian student, Gavrilo Princip,
00:15came here with a browning pistol for some target practice.
00:25Princip was 19 years old.
00:27According to his instructor, he was not a very good shot.
00:31Other students were much more confident.
00:34Whenever Princip missed the target, people standing around would laugh at him.
00:38That would drive him to tears.
00:43Out of sight in the forest, he had a chance to get his eye in, shooting at trees.
00:48His ultimate goal was far more ambitious.
00:52I am an adherent of the radical anarchist idea,
00:55which aims at destroying the present system through terrorism.
01:00In 1914, Princip's wish was granted.
01:04The End
01:13The End
01:16The First World War began almost by accident.
01:30It ended just as strangely.
01:45In between, it was more destructive than any war had ever been.
01:50More British, French and Italian soldiers died in the First World War than died in the Second.
01:56It was the first genuinely global conflict, fought not just on the fields of France and Flanders, but up mountains, across deserts, at sea and in the air.
02:14The First World War shaped the 20th century.
02:21It sparked the Russian Revolution.
02:23It launched America as a world power.
02:27The fault lines from its failed peace settlement led the world to a second terrible war, barely 20 years later, then to the Cold War.
02:39But the ideas the men of 1914 fought for still shape our world today.
02:48Nationalism and democracy, the rule of international law and the rights of nations.
02:54Now, after the collapse of communism, the European map resembles the one redrawn by the First World War.
03:05We live with its unresolved bitter consequences, in the Middle East and the Balkans.
03:11And it was in the Balkans that it all began, nearly 100 years ago.
03:22At the start of the 20th century, as at its close, the Balkans were the most unstable part of Europe.
03:28Here, three great empires fought for power and influence.
03:31The Austro-Hungarian, the Russian and the Ottoman.
03:43For hundreds of years, the Ottoman Turks had the upper hand.
03:46Serbia, Bosnia, Albania were under their control.
03:49They built over 80 mosques in Serbian Belgrade.
03:59But by the 1900s, only this one was left.
04:05Serbia had thrown the Turks out and set herself up as an independent Slav kingdom.
04:10But right on Serbia's border was an even greater challenge to Slav nationalism, the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
04:24The old Turks of the south have gone.
04:27But new enemies come from the north, more fearsome and dangerous than the old.
04:32They want to take our freedom and our language from us and crush us.
04:40They want to take our freedom.
04:45Gavrilo Princip was born in a poor, mountainous part of Bosnia.
04:56His house was destroyed in the Balkan Wars of the 1990s.
05:05His initials, carved in 1909, are one of the few signs he ever lived here.
05:10The year before, control of Bosnia had been wrested from the Turks by the Austro-Hungarians.
05:20The enemy Princip wanted to destroy.
05:27His particular target was the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne,
05:31Franz Ferdinand, member of the ruling family, the Habsburgs.
05:34That extraordinary empire, known as the Austrian-Hungarian dual monarchy, is less an empire, or a kingdom, or a state, than the personal property of the Habsburgs, whose hereditary talent for the acquisition of land is recorded on the map of Europe.
05:35On the map of Europe today.
05:36That extraordinary empire known as the Austrian-Hungarian dual monarchy
05:53is less an empire or a kingdom or a state
05:56than the personal property of the Habsburgs,
05:59whose hereditary talent for the acquisition of land
06:02is recorded on the map of Europe today.
06:06The empire was ruled by Franz Ferdinand's uncle, Franz Joseph.
06:14He sat on two thrones, as Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary.
06:23By 1914, he'd been in charge for 66 years.
06:27He'd spent them trying to resist change of any kind.
06:33Hardly ever seen out of military uniform, he hated the idea of political reform.
06:38As he told US President Theodore Roosevelt,
06:42to be the last European monarch of the old school.
06:48Austria-Hungary was a key part of European security, a multinational empire keeping the peace on
06:58the borders of the West.
07:00The capital, Vienna, was one of the great cosmopolitan centres of Europe.
07:05This was the empire that produced Freud and Mahler,
07:08Schiele, Kafka and Strauss.
07:10It contained at least ten different nationalities, not just Austrians and Hungarians, but Czechs, Slovaks,
07:19Poles, Romanians, Italians, Croats and Bosnians.
07:25A guide was prepared by the British Foreign Office to help work out who was who.
07:33Poles, all for Polish independence.
07:34Bosnian Serbs, pro-Yugoslav, Italians, anti-Ostans, anti-Ostans, anti-Ostans, anti-Ostans, anti-Ostans,
07:35very wooden and hard-headed, shy and suspicious, close-fisted, very tall, big noses, Slovaks,
07:43ignorant, but artistic, Rufines, savage and ignorant, but...
07:47Czechs, musical, energetic, forceful, intensely...
07:52But it was also an empire in a state of constant crisis.
07:56Poles, all for Polish independence.
07:59Bosnian Serbs, pro-Yugoslav, Italians, anti-Austrian.
08:05In all the empire, only the Hungarians and Austrians had any real power,
08:11and the Hungarians refused to share it with the rest.
08:21For countries like Serbia, Austria-Hungary was the prison of nations,
08:25a repressive, undemocratic state that ground small peoples under its heel.
08:36In 1905, there were nationalist demonstrations in Vienna.
08:47In 1912, there was rioting in Budapest.
08:52By 1914, there'd been ethnic unrest in nearly every part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
08:56Local parliaments were suspended, troops brought in to restore order.
09:08Austria-Hungary's domestic problems gave opportunities to her enemies.
09:16Serbia wanted the break-up of the empire.
09:18She welcomed national unrest, particularly in Croatia and Bosnia.
09:27Backed by Slav Russia, Serbia saw herself as the only independent hope
09:31for Slavs living under foreign rule in the Balkans.
09:35She wanted to unite them into a single South Slav state, Yugoslavia.
09:39Dragutin Dimitrievic was an officer in the Serbian army.
09:50He opposed any kind of friendship with Austria.
09:53The blind surrender to Austria's embrace was a most shameful betrayal of Serbian traditions.
10:03I realised that Serbia must in full measure become the leader,
10:07not only of Serbs, but of Yugoslavia.
10:09Dimitrievic believed killing kings could bring political change.
10:16It had worked for him in the past.
10:23In 1903, he led a palace revolution, killing the old king of Serbia,
10:28who was too close to Austria for the army's liking,
10:30and installing a new one.
10:32The crowds expressed enormous joy.
10:35They stuck flowers and leaves in their caps,
10:37windows were decorated with banners, flowers, garlands.
10:42Belgrade was celebrating.
10:47The rest of the world was horrified at Serbia's bloody coup.
10:51Serbia was treated like a rogue state.
10:54A nest of revolutionaries, one foreign minister complained.
10:58Only two countries sent ambassadors to King Peter's coronation.
11:02Russia, Serbia's greatest ally,
11:05and Austria, her greatest enemy.
11:07Dmitrievic was also one of the founding members of the Black Hand,
11:17a secret military society that used terrorism and assassination
11:22to try and establish Yugoslavia.
11:23He is said to have sent men to murder Austro-Hungarian military leaders and cabinet ministers.
11:33He allegedly tried to kill Emperor Franz Josef.
11:37One saw him nowhere, yet one knew that he was doing everything.
11:41By the spring of 1914, Gavrilo Princip was also in Belgrade, talking revolution with his friends.
11:54Then the young Bosnians heard that Archduke Franz Ferdinand would visit Sarajevo in June.
12:10Here was their chance to match deeds to words.
12:12Luckily for them, their plans reached the ears of Dmitrievic and the Black Hand.
12:17Dmitrievic worked in the Kalamigdan fortress in Belgrade as chief of Serbian military intelligence.
12:33In the spring of 1914, Major Voya Tankasic, also in the Black Hand, walked into his office with a question.
12:48I've got some Bosnian youths pestering me. These kids want to pull off some great deed at any cost.
12:57They've heard that Franz Ferdinand is coming to Bosnia and have begged me to let them go there.
13:02What do you say? I've told them they cannot go, but they give me no peace.
13:11Franz Ferdinand was going to Bosnia to observe the Austro-Hungarian army's manoeuvres in the hills outside Sarajevo.
13:18As intelligence chief, Dmitrievic feared these manoeuvres were a smokescreen, that what Franz Ferdinand really planned was an invasion of Serbia.
13:36As leader of the Black Hand, he believed anything that destabilised Austria-Hungary was good for his beloved Serbia.
13:53Princip's plan to murder Franz Ferdinand suited him perfectly.
13:56Fine, he said. Let him go.
14:12Unlike Gavrilo Princip, Archduke Franz Ferdinand was an excellent shot.
14:15One of his castles, Konopist, in what is now the Czech Republic, is full of the evidence.
14:28By the age of 50, he'd shot 5,000 stags, as well as 200,000 other animals, all carefully numbered.
14:35Anyone who disturbed the Archduke's peace at Konopist by trespassing on his land, as unsuspecting trippers sometimes did on Sundays, had to reckon with being shouted at by an irascible and almost apoplectic proprietor, who threatened to shoot anyone who dared set foot in his grounds a second time.
14:54By 1914, Franz Ferdinand was emperor-in-waiting. Everyone knew it couldn't be long before his uncle died. Even the official portrait was ready. Franz Ferdinand with the stars and sash only the emperor could wear.
15:17He had no time for the etiquette and convention that hemmed in the Vienna court.
15:24He defied his uncle by marrying Sophie Hotek, who was not of royal blood.
15:35The most intelligent thing I've ever done in my life has been the marriage to myself. She is everything to me. My wife, my advisor, my doctor, my guardian angel. In a word, my entire happiness.
15:49Franz Ferdinand also had radical ideas for political reform.
15:56He recognized that the less power national minorities had within the empire, the more they'd look to other countries for help.
16:03The old system allowed ethnic Germans and Hungarians to dominate the government.
16:09It was a system that couldn't last.
16:15I can't help being surprised that there is any loyalty left among the nationalities after their treatment for so many years past.
16:22I must have them with me. This is the only salvation for the future.
16:26In 1914, the German emperor came to stay with Franz Ferdinand at Konopist.
16:36The Kaiser had a simple solution for dealing with troublesome national minorities.
16:41The Slavs are born not to rule, but to obey. This must be brought home to them. And if they imagine they can look to Belgrade for their salvation, they must be cured of this belief.
16:58But Franz Ferdinand had a better idea. He thought political reform was the best way to keep the multinational Austrian Empire on its feet and protect his own future as emperor.
17:07He had this map drawn up, showing how the Habsburg Empire could become the United States of Great Austria.
17:22Above all, Franz Ferdinand wanted to avoid war in the Balkans.
17:26One night, he made a toast after dinner.
17:30To peace? What would we get out of war with Serbia?
17:34We'd lose the lives of young men, and we'd spend money better used elsewhere.
17:40And what would we gain, for heaven's sake?
17:43A few plum trees, some pastures full of goat droppings, and a bunch of rebellious killers.
17:49Gavrilo Princip crossed the border from Serbia into Austria-Hungary here at the Drina River.
17:58He paddled out to Isakovic Island, where there was a Serbian guard post.
18:04The soldiers helped him wade ashore into Bosnia.
18:06From here, he made his way to Sarajevo, where he met up with six others in on the plot.
18:19The Serbian Major Tankasic had supplied them with four pistols, six bombs, and suicide pills in case of capture.
18:26They were already in Sarajevo when Franz Ferdinand arrived outside the capital on the 25th of June.
18:37They planned to attack him three days later, as he drove from the railway station to the town hall.
18:45One would be stationed at the first bridge on this road.
18:52Princip and the others would cover the rest of the route.
18:59Franz Ferdinand chose the date of his visit badly.
19:03Sarajevo was decked in flags for the occasion, but the 28th of June was Serbian National Day,
19:09a natural focus for hatred of the Habsburgs, as the Serbian ambassador to Vienna warned.
19:17This will cause much discontent.
19:20Some young Serb might put a live round rather than a blank in his gun and fire it.
19:26Therefore, it might be good if Archduke Franz Ferdinand were not to go to Sarajevo.
19:33But the Austrians laughed off the ambassador's fears.
19:36On the morning of the 28th of June, Franz Ferdinand and Sophie arrived by train in Sarajevo.
19:47Despite the warnings, security was light.
19:50No soldiers lined the streets, just a handful of policemen.
19:59The royal car was a Grefenstift tourer.
20:01Of Franz Ferdinand's request, it travelled with the top down, very slowly,
20:06so the crowds could see him and he could see the sights.
20:18As the procession passed the first bridge, the conspirator there threw his bomb.
20:23Sitting opposite the royal couple was Oscar Poterec.
20:26The explosion came immediately after the Archduchess's cry to drive on quickly.
20:32I was sure no damage had been done to our car.
20:35And the Archduke commented very calmly,
20:38I've always thought something like this might happen.
20:39The bomb had bounced off the car, exploding behind it and wounding two officers and some onlookers.
20:52Franz Ferdinand stopped to ask after the casualties before hurrying on to the town hall.
20:57There, the mayor of Sarajevo began his official welcome speech.
21:06The Archduke interrupted.
21:08Lord Mayor, what is the good of your speeches?
21:11I come to Sarajevo on a friendly visit and someone throws a bomb at me.
21:15This is outrageous!
21:16So far, the young Bosnian's plans had gone badly wrong.
21:23Franz Ferdinand was alive, official security was now on high alert.
21:28Gavrilo Princip turned to go home, stopping on the corner of Franz Josef Street to buy a sandwich.
21:38Then his luck changed.
21:42Franz Ferdinand had left the town hall.
21:43He should have been driven straight along the river, travelling too fast to give any other assassins a chance.
21:50But his driver took a wrong turn at the corner of Franz Josef Street.
21:59As the royal car tried to reverse onto the main road, Princip came face to face with his target.
22:07At that moment, I heard the crack of a pistol shot, followed swiftly by another.
22:14And saw in the same split second, a man standing right in front of me being thrown to the ground by the people around him.
22:20And the shining sabre of a security guard descending on him.
22:23A thin stream of blood spurted from his highness's mouth onto my right cheek.
22:31The Duchess cried out,
22:33In heaven's name, what has happened to you?
22:35Then she slid off the seat and lay on the floor of the car.
22:37I thought she had simply fainted.
22:41Then I heard his imperial highness say,
22:44Soferle, Soferle, don't die, stay alive for the children.
22:48I asked him if he was in great pain.
22:51He answered me quite distinctly,
22:53It's nothing.
22:56Franz Ferdinand and Sophie died on the way to hospital.
22:58The people of Sarajevo didn't know that a clutch of Serbian army officers had secretly sponsored the assassination.
23:12But they made the same leap the world did, that Serbia had as good as pulled the trigger herself.
23:20The pro-Austrian element in the crowd went wild.
23:24The excitement of the moment turned into fury against everyone and everything Serbian.
23:29Serbian shops, schools and churches were smashed and looted.
23:35The streets choked with furniture, clothes, bicycles, books, even icons and crosses.
23:42Twisted and befouled, lying in heaps in the gutters.
23:51Over 200 Serbs were arrested in Sarajevo alone.
23:54Local officials hanged some in the city prison.
24:03Many more died in pogroms across Bosnia and Herzegovina.
24:11The funeral of Franz Ferdinand and Sophie was held in Vienna on the 4th of July.
24:17Oskar Potirek had already written to the foreign ministry, calling for Austria-Hungary to take revenge against Serbia.
24:25We must take the first opportunity for a destructive blow against Serbia to give the monarchy a few decades of calm internal development.
24:37Serbia must learn to fear us again.
24:39Austria-Hungarian chief of staff, Konrad von Hertzendorf, agreed.
24:45This is not the crime of a single fanatic.
24:52Assassination represents Serbia's declaration of war on Austria-Hungary.
24:56If we miss this occasion, the monarchy will be exposed to new explosions of ethnic unrest.
25:04Austria-Hungary must wage war for political reasons.
25:08In life, the Crown Prince had been a champion of peaceful coexistence with Serbia.
25:18In death, he was becoming a cause for war.
25:22The murder of Franz Ferdinand did not immediately set Europe alight.
25:36International tensions in early July remained low.
25:38But behind the scenes in Vienna, Austria-Hungary's leaders were planning how to take revenge on Serbia without getting stamped on by Serbia's powerful friends.
25:52Even before the assassination, Army Chief of Staff, Konrad von Hertzendorf, had pressed for war against Serbia no fewer than 20 times.
26:06Now he made his case again.
26:08I expressed to his majesty my opinion that war with Serbia was unavoidable.
26:16That is entirely correct, said his majesty.
26:19But how are you going to wage war if everyone, in particular Russia, is going to attack us?
26:25We have backing from Germany, I replied.
26:29His majesty gave me a searching look and said,
26:32Can you be certain of that?
26:33This was the moment when what could have been just another war in the Balkans began to turn into the First World War.
26:44Austro-Hungarian Emperor Franz Josef now asked the German Kaiser for support.
26:49On the 6th of July, he got just the answer he wanted.
26:52The German government is of the opinion that we must decide what is to be done.
26:56Whatever we decide, we may always be certain that we will find Germany at our side, a faithful ally and friend of our monarchy.
27:12Germany's crucial decision to back Austria was made with no care for the consequences.
27:17Neither the Kaiser nor his senior political and military leaders took any steps to find out what Austria-Hungary had in mind.
27:24It was an extraordinary oversight, because nothing in the Balkans happened in isolation.
27:35Europe was divided into two camps.
27:38On one side were Germany, Austria, Hungary and Italy.
27:43On the other were France and Russia.
27:46War with one could mean war with the others.
27:50No one knew how Russia would respond if one of the leading Balkan countries was attacked.
27:56She might go to war with Austria to protect Serbia.
28:00Then Germany would have to fight to protect Austria.
28:03The Germans thought the Russians might stay out of it.
28:14The German ambassador in St. Petersburg insisted Russia couldn't risk war for fear of internal revolution.
28:20The German foreign minister decided Austria would quietly settle with Serbia.
28:27The German chancellor, Bettman Holweg, was almost as confident.
28:33The crime of Sarajevo was reprehensible.
28:36But politically, it would have the positive result of making Russia thoroughly disgusted with the Serbs.
28:43It was Germany's confidence support that pushed Austria forward.
28:52But far from plunging the world into war in 1914 out of aggression, Germany was just nudging it closer out of incompetence and wishful thinking.
29:06The Kaiser was so sure no war was brewing that he went on holiday.
29:10In Sarajevo, the trial of Gavrilo Princip was underway.
29:20The court heard plenty of evidence to prove that Serbian army officers had helped him.
29:25And with Germany's unconditional support, that was enough for Austria.
29:29She sentenced Princip to 20 years in jail, where he died in 1918.
29:35She sent Serbia an ultimatum.
29:37This document was Austria's excuse for war.
29:46It was filled with demands so extreme and insulting that Serbia could never accept them.
29:53But just in case they did, the Austrian ambassador in Belgrade was ordered to reject any reply as unacceptable.
30:02He delivered the ultimatum at 6pm on the 23rd of July, 1914.
30:07He delivered the ultimatum.
30:10Slavka Mikhailovich was a Belgrade doctor.
30:13The news of the ultimatum spread quickly.
30:16And soon there was a real alert.
30:18Streets and bars were crowded with anxious people.
30:22Everybody wondered what answer our government would give.
30:26Whether a new war would be avoided.
30:27Austria's ultimatum caught the world's diplomats napping.
30:37The French government, the French press and public opinion have been inconceivably surprised.
30:43Paris is almost dead.
30:47All the ambassadors but one are out of town.
30:50The Italian ambassador is in Ireland.
30:53The Kaiser was on his yacht in Norway when the text of the Austrian ultimatum arrived.
31:02The Kaiser arrived on deck as usual after breakfast and said to me, I was still holding the wireless message.
31:12That's a pretty strong note for once in a while.
31:16It certainly is, I replied, but it means war.
31:20Whereupon the Kaiser observed that Serbia would never risk a war.
31:27She might not have risked it on her own.
31:30But on the 24th of July, the Serbian regent, Prince Alexander, telegrammed Russia for help.
31:36In St Petersburg, the Russian foreign minister spoke frankly to the British ambassador.
31:44Austria would not have acted so aggressively without the consent of Germany.
31:49I hoped the British government would declare itself on the side of France and Russia without delay.
31:58Russia was convinced that Germany was warmongering.
32:02On the 26th of July, she called up her reserves.
32:07This was the second key stage of the crisis, as Britain's foreign secretary, Edward Grey, warned on the 28th.
32:16From the moment the dispute ceases to be won between Austria-Hungary and Serbia,
32:21and becomes one in which another great power is involved,
32:24it cannot but end in the greatest catastrophe that has ever befallen the continent of Europe.
32:31Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia that same day.
32:34The first shots of the war were fired from here, the Austrian fortress of Zeeman, just across the river from Belgrade.
32:44In the dead of night, Major Voya Tankasic had the black hand blow the only railway bridge.
32:51windows shattered to smithereens, and broken glass covered the floor.
32:58Patients started screaming.
33:01Then there was another explosion.
33:03One explosion.
33:04And another one.
33:10So it was true.
33:11The war had begun.
33:12How well our old city deserved the name the Turks had given her.
33:28The House of Wars.
33:29Shells fired from all sides were criss-crossing above her.
33:35The Austrians had peculiar weapons, the so-called monitors.
33:39Little boats armed with heavy guns circling Belgrade like rabid dogs, and firing from every direction.
33:45It was still only a war between Austria-Hungary and Serbia.
33:52And on the 29th of July, as the shells fell on Belgrade, there was a final attempt to keep it that way.
33:59A series of last-minute telegrams flashed across Europe.
34:04Tsar to Kaiser, cousin to cousin.
34:07Dear Willy, an ignoble war has been declared on a weak country.
34:11The indignation in Russia is enormous.
34:14Dear Nicky, I am exerting my utmost influence on the Austrians.
34:17I confidently hope you will help me to-
34:19Dear Willy, my troops shall not take any provocative action.
34:23But by now the crisis was beyond the control of monarchs or politicians.
34:28It was in the hands of the military.
34:31From the moment Russia mobilized her army, German generals knew their own power.
34:36Their own clock was ticking.
34:44The alliance between France and Russia meant that Germany faced a war on two fronts.
34:49Her only hope was to deal with France in the west before the main Russian armies could invade from the east.
34:55That left no time to wait and see.
34:58For Germany, Russian mobilization meant war.
35:06Germany hadn't looked for a fight.
35:10Her generals knew a European war would be long and devastating, even for the victors.
35:16But if it was going to happen, they thought, better sooner than later.
35:20According to all competent observation, Russia will be prepared to fight in a few years.
35:31Then she will crush us by the number of her soldiers.
35:34Then she will have built her Baltic sea fleet and strategic railways.
35:38Our side, meanwhile, will have grown steadily weaker.
35:41On the 1st of August, Germany declared war on Russia.
35:48Two days later, she declared war on Russia's ally, France.
36:00Across Europe, 10 million men headed off to fight.
36:03For all the bands and flag waving, many went unwillingly to war.
36:10Where are we off to? France? Belgium? Or the east?
36:15At the station, people waved goodbye, some with handkerchiefs.
36:19I thought of my wife and child left alone at home.
36:23In fact, it wasn't so much a thought as a fearful shadow flitting over my soul.
36:28Oh God, how long is this town?
36:42My bane is digging in, my collars strangling me.
36:46And when I look up, I see a pretty girl.
36:49She was so full of admiration, so moved by it all,
36:53that I realized we've got to look handsome and walk tall.
36:56Off we march to the sound of shrill brass.
36:59Although where we're going, you die.
37:02You're defaced, hacked up, torn apart.
37:06All down the line, my comrades straighten up at the sight of her.
37:17There's great excitement among my comrades.
37:19The bachelors are calm, they're even joking about it.
37:23Family men are depressed.
37:25Some are saying we'll get nothing from this war.
37:28We'll get beaten by the Germans.
37:31What's in it for us peasant soldiers?
37:33Why have we got to fight for some offended Serbs?
37:37The leaders had little better idea why they were fighting than the men.
37:42They had no lists of war aims.
37:45Germany and Austria, Serbia, Russia and France were all convinced
37:49they were fighting a defensive war, forced on them by someone else.
37:52The only great power in Europe, still on the sidelines, was Britain.
38:09On the 2nd of August, 1914, Britain was still at peace, but only just.
38:14We've been in a state of great excitement, as the reservists are being called up.
38:22All the railways are guarded.
38:24Everything points to the great war, so long expected being upon us.
38:31But Britain was the only great power who could not claim she was the victim of aggression.
38:36Nobody had attacked her, so why should she fight?
38:39It wasn't really to defend the rights of small nations.
38:43At least, not Serbia, according to the Manchester Guardian.
38:48If it were physically possible for Serbia to be towed out to sea and sunk there,
38:53the air of Europe would at once seem cleaner.
38:59Nor was Britain bound by treaty obligations,
39:02as the Foreign Secretary, Edward Grey, assured Parliament.
39:04We are not parties to the Franco-Russian Alliance.
39:09We do not even know the terms of the Alliance.
39:15But in private, Grey and other leaders knew that Britain had to fight.
39:21If Britain stayed neutral, the war would still threaten the country's vast empire,
39:27its global trade and security.
39:29And Britain needed to stay on friendly terms with France and Russia.
39:34Even in peacetime, she was not powerful enough to defend her empire against everyone.
39:41In Africa and India, the safety of Britain's colonies depended on French and Russian goodwill.
39:49In 1914, Britain feared her friends just as much as her enemies.
39:53If we fail Russia now, we cannot hope to maintain that friendly cooperation with her in Asia
40:02that is of such vital importance to us.
40:05Above all, Britain could never afford to have Europe dominated by a triumphant Germany.
40:11If Germany overran the Channel ports, Britain's control of the seas would be under threat.
40:16Prime Minister Herbert Asquith took a pragmatic view.
40:22It is quite against British interests that France should be wiped out.
40:29At 11pm on the 4th of August, Britain declared war on Germany.
40:33It was like awaiting the signal for the pulling of a lever which would hurl millions to their doom.
40:39The deep notes of Big Ben rang out into the night,
40:43the first strokes in Britain's most fateful hour since she arose out of the deep.
40:48Every face was suddenly contracted into a painful intensity.
40:52It's horrible to think of all the suffering which may follow our mobilization.
41:00I suppose the less one thinks of it, the better.
41:04We never talk of death and very seldom think much about it.
41:09It's when everyone is asleep and you are awake that sometimes you look into the future and wonder.
41:14The British government had a war book listing all that had to be done in an emergency.
41:23The country's leaders knew war would be a long and painful struggle.
41:28A slow grinding process of blockade, of starving the enemy out.
41:35But most civilians had no idea what they were getting into.
41:39Across Europe there was a run on the banks.
41:42The war couldn't last longer than a year, the French finance minister told a British general.
41:48Because the money to pay for it would run out.
41:59Most people expected Britain, with the largest navy in the world, to fight a sea war.
42:07The foreign secretary reassured the nation.
42:11For us, with a powerful fleet, which we believe able to protect our commerce,
42:17to protect our shores, and to protect our interests,
42:20if we are engaged in war, we shall suffer but little more than we shall suffer if we stand aside.
42:25Burt Fielder was a sergeant in the Royal Marines.
42:37He reassured his wife.
42:38My dear Nell, I don't think this war is going to be half as bad as people expect it to be.
42:45You see, it's not a hard job for England, so there's no need to worry yourself.
42:49As long as I can keep you informed as to where I am, it'll all be alright.
42:53But the weapons with which the world went to war were so new that few had ever been fired in anger.
43:03Countries were armed with battleships and submarines less than ten years old.
43:07Nobody really knew how to use them.
43:13All the European powers have been stockpiling new artillery, machine guns, explosive shells.
43:20But none had fought a major war in Europe for over 40 years.
43:30The crisis had begun in the Balkans.
43:33And as the Austrians faced up to the Serbs, the First World War started here as it would go on everywhere else.
43:40A war in which old scores would be settled and the rulebook thrown away.
43:49The war is taking us into a country inhabited by a population inspired with fanatical hatred towards ourselves.
43:57An attitude of extreme severity, extreme harshness and extreme distrust is to be observed towards everybody.
44:07In some sectors, Serbian civilians did fight a guerrilla war.
44:12Not in uniform, not in the regular army.
44:14It was hard for the Austrians to tell who was a real enemy, who was not.
44:21But their reprisals against the Serbian people were vicious.
44:31This was a war of nationalities and races.
44:34Not just against an enemy army, but against whole peoples.
44:38In the first month of the war, 4,000 civilians in Western Serbia were killed or disappeared.
44:50They burned houses down.
44:52Looted, raped, killed.
44:55Seventeen people.
44:57All women, girls, children tied with rope.
45:00Dead in a ditch by the road.
45:03All of them slaughtered.
45:04At 9 a.m. I went to Lesznica to get some supplies for the battery.
45:12In the town, you could see the atrocities left behind by the enemy.
45:23Ten people, some children among them, had been hanged near the church.
45:26About a hundred people, their throats cut at the railway station.
45:30A terrible sight to cast your eyes on.
45:33At the Serbian town of Prynjava, this memorial commemorates those who died.
45:46The Serbian government commissioned a report into the massacres by a Swiss doctor, Rodolf Reis.
45:53The massacres of the civil population were systematically organized by the command of the invading army.
46:03It's upon the command that all responsibility must rest.
46:07And also the disgrace with which this army has covered itself for all time.
46:11Austria-Hungary was far less ruthless when it came to fighting the Serbian army.
46:27That too set a pattern for the war.
46:30A foretaste of the military weakness which would dog Austria-Hungary's partnership with Germany.
46:34This was a war in which events on one front could have a critical effect on another.
46:48Germany was relying on her ally Austria-Hungary to hold the Eastern Front.
46:53With Russia massing on her borders, Germany was horrified to learn Austria had concentrated her reserves
46:59not against Russia, but down in the Balkans to deal with Serbia.
47:06Meanwhile, the main Serbian army had marched up from the south of the country,
47:10gathering numbers as it went.
47:12On the 12th of August, it finally met the Austrians at Ser Mountain.
47:22The Serbs had taken up strong defensive positions along the mountain range
47:25and waited for the Austrians to walk into the trap.
47:30The Serbs surrounded us.
47:32The Serbian artillery had the range perfectly.
47:35Unluckily, so we were told by senior officers,
47:39we had arrived at the Serbian artillery practice area.
47:43Laughable.
47:47The Serbs easily beat off the Austro-Hungarian attack.
47:51We could see the enemy retreating along the river.
47:53Their ammunition train left all their carts in the valley and ran away
47:57as soon as they were hit by our artillery.
48:00A beaten army?
48:02No, an uncontrolled mob ran towards the border in senseless panic.
48:07Drivers whipped their horses.
48:09Officers and soldiers shoved and squeezed through between the columns of wagons.
48:13Austro-Hungarian prisoners captured in the first Allied victory of the war.
48:29Austria had thought Serbia would be a pushover,
48:32swift revenge for the murder of Franz Ferdinand.
48:34But Serbia had scattered the Austrian army.
48:40The victories of 1914 cost Serbia 130,000 men.
48:44They did not die in vain, reads the inscription on this memorial to Serbia's dead.
48:48Every nation would learn that nothing in this war would be easy, quick or clean.
48:58On the Western Front, a French ambulance driver wrote to his son.
49:08Do you ever think of your daddy walking day and night over ploughed fields
49:12and getting very used to shells exploding all over the place?
49:15I'd really like to hear from you.
49:18How's school?
49:20Don't be too quick to learn the geography of Europe.
49:23I think it's all about to change.
49:34In the next episode of the First World War,
49:37German armies roll into Belgium and France, leaving a trail of atrocities.
49:41And France, aided by Britain, fights for her life.
49:45Can you a friend?
49:48No man, we have a friend of ours.
49:50It's nothing that you've ever produced.
49:52So we've been aARCH.
49:54AUNTI09RRASp.com
49:56AUNTI09RRAC.COM
49:59AUNTI11 basically called Glow in the World War.
50:01I think we have a great day for you.
50:03AUNTI09RRAC.COM
50:05AUNTI09RRAC.COM
50:10AUNTI09RRAC.COM
50:13AUNTI09RRAC.COM
Comments